


Code Name

by jessamoo



Category: Bodyguard (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-02
Updated: 2018-09-02
Packaged: 2019-07-06 00:13:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,684
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15874578
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jessamoo/pseuds/jessamoo
Summary: Julia has to rely on David once again when a protest gets out of hand





	Code Name

"I hate that codename." Julia affected a shudder after hearing her bodyguard update his colleagues as they travelled down in the hotel lift. "It makes me sound like I'm 80 years old."

"I can assure you ma'am-" David looked at her out of the corner of his eye. "You don't look a day over 75."

"You do know I could fire you whenever I wanted?" She asked dryly - Though secretly she was quite pleased he was joking with her. Usually their relationship ricocheted from fraught to wary and to professional with dizzying speed.

David smiled. Well, no, he didn't smile. But his face did what she now recognized as his version of a smile - An almost invisible curve of his lips, the corners of his eyes crinkling.

 

The lift doors pinged open and she let him go ahead of her, getting her phone out to check it.

She doesn't really notice David tapping at his comms device, whispering in annoyance.

He pauses and she nearly walks into him. For god's sake, she thinks. She can see her car waiting for her outside.

"I can't hear you." David is saying. 

A small, cold sliver of understanding makes her breath hitch. Knowing something happening but not knowing what. 

"We'll have to use the back exit ma'am." David begins steering her away from the large glass doors.

"What's going on?"

He's looking around him, his jaw tight. They walk past the middle aged man on reception, who was now standing to peer at the doors.

Julia hears it then. The low rumbling at first that quickly became shouting, screaming, as a huge crowd came into view outside.

"You've got to be kidding me." She breathes.

Protestors - From any and all sides judging by the array of cardboard signs being brandished at her. Who do you think is trying to protect your right to free speech? She wants to scream at them.

David is still trying to make her move but she stops. "I'm not frightened of them."

He flexed his jaw but she cut him off before he could respond. "Someone was shooting at me - us - Last week - I think I can handle a few bleeding hearts with placards."

"All due respect Ma'am, I can't let you go out there. They might seem harmless but the moment you step out there all you'll be doing is giving them a target."

She resisted the urge to roll her eyes. 

David's eyes snapped over to the receptionist who was beginning to move towards the doors.

"Where do you think you're going?" He growled, following him. Julia felt the absence of him now he wasn't beside her.

"To tell them to go -"

The doors shatter with a piercing sound that rips through the air.

David and the receptionist fall away from the shards of glass as Julia, shaking, moves to crouch by the main desk.

She doesn't know what it is that broke the glass and she's too afraid to look. Suddenly everything seems as bright and loud as a gunshot. 

She feels like she's back in that bloody car again. Helpless, hating not being in control of her own life. She had never, ever felt that kind of fear before. That visceral fear that choked you and turned your insides to lead. Ever since that day she'd felt raw. Like even touching her skin might hurt. Sometimes she leans into that pain though, lets David strain against it, and she sometimes feels better. Not always. Julia doesn't realise that David feels this way all the time too, and has done for years. For every second of every day he had felt like a raw nerve, all his tender and soft parts exposed. Sometimes, for him, just existing and getting up everyday felt like pressing on bruises to make them ache. All Julia knows is that right then, when she needs the solid weight of his presence, he is no longer next to her. 

She hears the tinkle of glass being brushed against the floor. For one terrifying moment she thinks someone from outside has managed to get past the police who now swarmed the entrance. That if someone had got past David that must mean he was dead. 

But then she hears a groan she knows. As soon as she sees David moving she's crawling out to him. By the time she reaches him he's trying to drag the now unconscious receptionist across the floor. She wants to reach out to him - There's red marks where the glass had caught his cheeks. But she helps him with the other man instead. She feels glass on the floor digging into her palms. Together they manage to drag the unconscious man to his desk - The one he should have bloody stayed at. She feels a sort of pang, of guilt she supposes, at not being more sympathetic. Of caring more about David's well being right then.

"Is he going to- Is he?-" She doesn't know what she's trying to ask, only that she ought to ask something.

"It was a brick thrown by one of the protesters. It hit him when it broke the glass door." 

Julia felt her heart clattering, making her feel sick. In her head she had thought it was a gunshot. That she just hadn't heard, that had been meant for her.

"They'll be riled up even more now. They'll be in here soon, we have to go. We can get the lift down to the service entrance, there'll be a car there waiting." David carries on.

Julia feels tired. David, of course, lived a life in which he almost constantly catapulted from one extreme to another, even when off duty. He was quite used to all this. Julia squashed and twisted every emotion until she could justify all of them. She needed time to think. She didn't know how to do this all again. 

"We shouldn't just leave him lying here on his own." She nodded to the receptionist. The truth is she's scrambling, trying to let her thoughts catch up with her. She looked at her hands but she isn't sure who's blood it is. Why did she always end up covered in other peoples blood?

"He's out cold but he should be ok. But the crowds out there might not be held back forever so we need to go. Then someone can come and help him."

David is still speaking but she isn't really hearing him. She knows she's being unhelpful. She isn't used to the sensation. But in the car she'd sat still and small and she had been safe. As if it's a muscle memory, her body wanted to curl in on itself and not move. Her brain was screaming at her.

"Ma'am!"

She looks at the shapes beyond the glass. People whose faces she couldn't make out properly, one big blur of anger, of hate, all for her.

"Ma'am, come on now!" She feels David tugging at her arms. It feels like it's happening to someone else. The real her was braver than this.

"Julia!"

The shout of her name slaps her back into reality.

David sees her start and grabs her face in both his large hands, forcing her to look at him.

"Julia, it's time to go. OK?"

His voice sounds gentle in a way she has never heard before. It makes her want to scream.

She feels his arms go round her waist and this time she lets him easily pick her up from the ground. He keeps his arms around her as the walk quickly over to the lift.

David starts jabbing the lift buttons and she sways. "They hate me." She says. "They don't even know me and they hate me. I mean - They want to hurt me!"

David looks at her for a long moment, his expression unreadable.

"You don't have to know someone to hurt them. It's easier if you don't, isn't it?"

All the gentility from a few moments ago is gone. She doesn't know then who he is talking about. The people outside of himself? Or her?

Finally they tumble into the lift and they are back in the heavy clean silence behind the doors.

Julia slumps down to sit on the floor, her back against the other side of the lift. David crouches down beside her but she tugs on his sleeve till he sits down properly beside her. 

She wants to say thank you, but she can't bear the thought of him replying with something about doing his job. She wants to say that she's angry, really angry. That she's sorry for being useless. That she isn't sorry for her politics. She wants to ask if he's OK. If he's ever felt the way those people did outside. About her. But she can't - Because she isn't sure of the answer. She wants to at least pretend he's really on her side, even for a bit.

"You've never called me Julia before." She says, and it's true. She'd liked it, but she doesn't tell him that. She feels like crying. She missed her name - wasn't that stupid? She wants to laugh. People called her by a job title, or Ma'am. If they did say her name it was her full name, and it was said ironically and with contempt. Her husband had called her Jules, when they had first got together. When they had been in love. Before they hated each others guts, obviously. No one ever called her that anymore. It felt like a long time ago.

Of course, David doesn't say anything. She feels disappointed but she doesn't know what else she had expected.

But he picks up her hand - the one with the small glass cuts. He smooths his thumb over it and then raises it to his lips and cheek and sighs.

As the lift begins it's countdown to their floor he stands up. He keeps hold of her hand until the last second before the doors ping open. Then he lets go quickly and speaks into his comms.

"Lavender about to exit through the service entrance."


End file.
